Enchanting Mats - Is it buyout time? | Just My Two Copper

Posted by Markco at 8:00 AM

I look at the price of Greater Cosmic Essences / Abyss Crystals and I wonder... is it buyout time?

With the release of Ulduar and Arena Season 6, many players will be boasting their new gear with shiny enchants sparkling from every bladed sheet of metal. These enchants cost lots and lots of greater cosmic essences / Abyss Crystals, but will the demand be enough? Also, won't greater cosmic essences just return to their current value or even less after 3.1?

Thanks to blog writers and forum posters like myself, many players have found ways to create tons of greater cosmic essences (see this post for one example of how to do it).

After pondering about buying out Greater Cosmic Essences / Abyss Crystals for weeks I've finally come to the conclusion...

BUY THEM NOW BEFORE IT'S TOO LATE!

Here's why:

3.1 will release and demand for these items will sky rocket, prices will be flying high for a few days before things calm down, but in that time period you should easily sell 100-200 greater cosmic essences. The trick will be to get in early and also get out as soon as possible.

This market is doomed to CRASH seriously hard after the patch, so please understand this before you go off and buy a thousand of these items. Only buy what you believe will sell on patch day, so if there's a greater cosmic essence baron on your server controlling prices, don't expect to sell too many before he cuts you down.

The reason this market will crash is that all players have an innate sense of what items should go for in the game. They recognize unfair pricing and usually react by posting with huge undercuts. It's a foolish business practice but really just human nature. Do your best to prevent undercutting by posting with lower bids but not lower buyouts should someone undercut you by say a gold or two.

Personally I will be posting 25 greater cosmic essences the day of the patch and will then replace them as soon as they are purchased. Same goes for abyss crystals. I am hoping for a 150-200% gold return on investment based on my server and the demand I foresee on patch day.

On a side note, the day after I purchased all these items and created a hole in the market (almost 0 supply but demand stayed the same) I managed to resell 25% of my purchased items for around 250% profit. Not bad and it's not even patch day yet :)

What happened was something I like to call the selling blues, but I will discuss this in a later post!

Good Luck!

If you're sheepish about purchasing items via buyout in bulk then try this post:
http://justmytwocopper.blogspot.com/2009/01/how-to-time-your-bids.html

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20 comments: on "Enchanting Mats - Is it buyout time?"

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Anonymous said... March 19, 2009 at 8:22 AM

i have a question how much lower do you usually put the bid price ? just lower then the lowest bid out there or like 1 copper ?
Markco said... March 19, 2009 at 8:42 AM

I usually go by 3-4% of the item's total value below the lowest bid without affecting my buyout price.
Eggalicious said... March 19, 2009 at 8:47 AM

I don't understand the logic behind posting mats the day of the patch. Won't it take some time for people to clear bosses in Ulduar to start getting new gear and wanting new enchants. Or, is it because of the new Arena Season?
Unknown said... March 19, 2009 at 9:42 AM

Arena season + new enchants + Hardcore guilds will rush and get SOME gear.

Add that to demand will dry up for a bit as people are in the new instance not DEing purple, and not in Naxx breaking everything.

Supply down + Demand up = $$$
Unknown said... March 19, 2009 at 11:09 AM

I'm doing the same thing with Herbs/Inks. With the new season, new content and dual spec/glyph addition I see glyph, ink and herb prices skyrocketing for a short time then dropping below where they are now.
Kring said... March 19, 2009 at 11:47 AM

What makes you believe that there is demand for enchants on patch day?

New emblem of honour items? Nope.
New items from Ulduar? Probably only by the guild who have full banks.
New items from people farming Naxx? Probably noone will raid Naxx that day?

Why should anyone enchant anything that day?

At the moment I'm dumping all my stuff like titansteel bars in preparation for 3.1. At least I've made some profit. :-)
Markco said... March 19, 2009 at 12:09 PM

NOOOOOOOOOO!

Titansteel bars are going up in value after the patch: they are used in future bs paterns.
Kring said... March 19, 2009 at 12:16 PM

I can make new ones. As can hundreds of others. I doubt it will go up. But, I like it that everyone thinks the go up in price and buys mine. :-)

I'll check the prices for sure after the patch, will be interesting to see.

But, I stockpiled 380 icy dragonscale. I bought each and every for less than 1 gold a piece and the price still did not climb. Looks like European players don't reed your blog. :-)
Anonymous said... March 19, 2009 at 2:19 PM

Icy dragonscales are on the upswing on my server... i think people buying them out to save for Ulduar has created an artificial rise in demand.

Ill be looking out for more comsics though, they were my main source of income for awhile now anyhow.
Anonymous said... March 19, 2009 at 3:04 PM

For all of you that do not think marco’s rezoning is sound I would like to point out a few thing to you first of duel specs are coming out most of the players I know have sets of gear for either pvp or off spec they are going to want to enchant them second yes ulduar is coming out people are going to want to put enchants on there new so the price of enchanting mats will go up especially abyss crystals I would expect a 30-60g increase in prices within the first 2 days depending on your server but after the first weeks the price will drop to record lows because naxx will become an abyss farm for hard core raiders and and it will no longer give out the best loot so a lot more will be passed over so I am predicting that abyss crystals will drop in price by 20-30g of current market value within 3 weeks of 3.1 as for other enchanting mats the price will go up substantially think of it this way almost every lvl 80 capable of paying 1k gold for duel spec will I would say around about 50% of lvl 80 will do it within the week and then about 75% of the people that that got duel spec will pay for enchants that is a 37.5% increase in demand for enchants immediately
Ps I believe that the best money maker for 3.1 will be glyphs everyone that gets duel specs will buy new glyphs as soon as the server goes up people will want to test out duel specs and doing that they will need glyphs and a lot of the people that buy glyphs for there off spec will buy more then they need to test them out and on top of that some of the best glyphs for everyone in wow are not any more do to the changes coming in 3.1 for glyphs I predict the price to stay normal for the first 4-5 hrs then a lot of glyphs will be bought out if you see that post prices higher and for the other glyphs that do not get bout out just post your glyphs at value and watch the gold pore in GL
ALL OF THIS IS SPECULATION TAKE IT AS YOU WILL
Anonymous said... March 19, 2009 at 3:11 PM

oh and do not invest in gems yes they have the potential for being a big money maker but there are whisperings of epic gems being slipped in to 3.1 yes they are probly just rumors but I try to be as safe as I can when speculating
Anonymous said... March 19, 2009 at 3:31 PM

I highly disagree with stocking up on greaters. For the following reasons:

-The market is currently deflating which kills many longterm investments.

-Minus the people who are enchanting their gear for their duel spec, mats will not be in high demand right off the bat. It is pretty reasonable to assume that guilds wont be able to start raiding the new dungeon on patch day for various reasons. The buyouts for gear upgrades probably wont start rolling in until that Thursday possibly Friday. By then the market has already crashed.

-As for the new arena season, as mentioned by Brian, new gear will not be available for purchase until at least the following Tuesday due to arena points being wiped when the new season starts.

The only things I can possibly understand stocking up on are cooldown items, frost lotus and artic fur because they are rare enough that I don't think they will drop to much on patch day.

As for the glyph business mentioned by countless people I really dout there is going to be a market for them. Yes, the buyout will be at an all time high, but so will the supply. Everyone and their grandmother will be selling glyphs. Undercuts will be killer in this.

I'm still trying to decide whether getting duel spec is even worth it.

This, like all other market predictions is just speculation.
Anonymous said... March 19, 2009 at 4:20 PM

I'm not saying this isn't gonna work, and granted, Markco has a helluva lot more experience in this field than I do. But I can't help thinking about - who are gonna buy the mats? Well, people who get drops from the new raids mostly (Y granted, there are the PvPers too).
Problem is, most in the high end guilds, that are gonna see loot in the first week, have been farming naxx for a good 4 months now. I suspect they have their banks chockfull of all the mats they'll need. Hell, I'm in a pretty casual guild, Naxx has been on farm (with a substantial amount of DEing happening, especially out of the 10man) for maybe 1 month. And even we have the mats to sustain us for atleast the first 2-3 resets worth of drops.
So, isn't it likely that the price will reach it's highest peak perhaps 2-3 weeks after patch?
Anonymous said... March 19, 2009 at 6:01 PM

Fortunately (or unfortunately, I don't know yet) Icy Dragonscales haven't changed in price much, maybe gone up 10% but I'm finding plenty for 1.25g per or less. As such I've amassed just over 1000 of them now, so lets hope they go up in value. I've been buying so many I hope I am the sole supplier :)
Anonymous said... March 20, 2009 at 7:50 AM

Icy Dragonscales price will probably not change tell 1 to 2 weeks in to patch because they are used to make crafted items that reqierd drops out of ulduar
Markco said... March 20, 2009 at 8:30 AM

Thanks to speculation, dragon scales are WAY overpriced :D
Anonymous said... March 20, 2009 at 10:20 AM

What price for Greater Cosmic Essences would you say is underpriced?
Markco said... March 20, 2009 at 11:46 AM

On my server 12-15 is underpriced. Your server may be different.
Unknown said... March 20, 2009 at 2:43 PM

GCEs are 9-10 on my server. But LCEs sell regularly for 4.7-5g per. So yeah, I've been enjoying that market for a while.
Anonymous said... March 31, 2009 at 3:03 PM

Hi. I can't seem to find your post about Icy Dragonscales. I have now stacked up on em, and I think I'm gonna spend around 1000g on them.

I was thinking about Arctic Fur. Seeing the new patterns require 5+ of these each! Would you recommend buying these aswell?

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